


Working The Sauce Aisle

by GameCube



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Swapfell (Undertale), At a store, Character death in the first 2 chapters, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Probably more graphic later on, Rating subject to change, Reader Is Not Chara, Reader Is Not Frisk, Reader and mutt work together, Reader goes by They/Them pronouns and there’s nothing you can do about it. Respect the pronouns YALL, Reader is Nonbinary, Reader is usually energetic, Swapfell monsters are trying to fit in, Tags Subject to Change, They made it to the surface! Yay!, Why can’t I think of a normal plot device, characters subject to change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:09:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28006725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GameCube/pseuds/GameCube
Summary: You, dear reader, work the sauce aisle at your work place as an energetic ray of sunshine who loves seeing people smile, even more so if you can make them laugh, regardless of what you’ve been through yourself. Everyone seems to adore you there, and you can truly say you’re happy, even as you get put with a new hire despite only working there a month.A quiet skeleton monster, who is objectively attractive, you attempt to crack his shell and teach him the ropes. Determined to do your job right, you tackle the task head on.But alas, what could ever dull that sparkle you possess?What indeed.
Relationships: Mutt/Reader, Papyrus (Swapfell)/Reader, Papyrus (Undertale)/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Working The Sauce Aisle

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hey howdy, please ignore the fact I haven’t touched my other fanfic in a while.
> 
> Anyway, I’m hoping my writing is better in this one. I’m hoping that once I start getting stuck in this one I can open the floor for your own ideas. It may be a few chapters before then but be on the look out for A/N’s at the end of chapters for idea submission stuff 💜
> 
> ⚠️ALSO TW: THE END OF THIS CHAPTER HAS IMPLIED SUICIDAL EVENTS AND IT WILL REVOLVE AROUND IT FOR A BIT⚠️

October 14th 20XX, the sun is shining, the air is getting nippy once again, and monsters roam the streets as (mostly) recognized citizens. Things are on the up for them in society after both humans and monsters agreed to compromise certain things. Magic can’t be used outside of the home, which goes for human mages as well, which turns out is a  lot  more than you imagined there’d be. And recently, monsters were allowed to apply for jobs outside of their own establishments! Even your own has begun the process, so you’ve heard.

Speaking of, its an exciting day at work today, or at least in your opinion. There’s a few grumbling voices among your crew down in receiving for the store you’re employed by. A group of new hires are about to be done with the video training part and are going to be allowed in the receiving area and on the floor. And among them is supposed to be a monster! Uh- not that you’re excited about meeting a monster, you’ve met plenty working at your store. You’re excited that the company you’ve recently started with is taking the initiative to start hiring them so fast after they were finally allowed to apply. Hopefully you can give a lasting impression for them and have them pass the news on to others in their community about it being a welcoming workplace.

The crew is in definite need of help, so extending it to them should be plenty helpful. You’re sure.

“There you are y/n! Could you come here for a second?” Your manager calls out as you’re work the line, placing boxes on respective carts to be put on the shelves. Giving a wave to the others working your side of the line and bounding over to where he stands. Richie, a tall, lanky gay man with peppered facial stubble and short (nearly shaved) hair and a single piercing in each ear stands next to someone in a fur hooded purple jacket, hood pulled on top. They have their back to you as Richie says something to them.

“What’s up, boss man?” You greet, flashing your easy going smile.

“Y/n, this is one of our- newer hires, Papyrus. He finished his videos early so we’re gonna get ahead with on-the-job training part.” Richie says, motioning to the person he was talking to a moment before. Papyrus turns around to face you and the first thing you notice is two gold canine teeth glinting in the warehouse lights, they appear to border the rest of his fangs, second is his eyes (eyelights?) resting in the sockets of his skull. The most stunning lavender you’ve ever seen. And last, he’s tall and lanky. You guess somewhere around six foot or close to it, considering he nearly matches Richie’s height.

“Nice to meet you, Papyrus! As Richie said, I’m Y/n.” You give a mock bow as you say your name. Richie rolls his eyes in response, Papyrus’ lights never leave you though, a slight amused grin finds its way on his fangs at least, so you’re satisfied.

“jus’ call me mutt.” He responds, sending you a wink. You give a smiley nod in return.

“Try not to mind Y/n’s antics or excitement. Despite their goofy behavior, they’re a very hard worker and one of our fastest learners, too.” Pride swells in your chest before he turns to address you. “You’ll be training him on your aisle for the next week or so, good luck!” And with a quick eager nod from you, Richie leaves to assign other new hires to other long standing employees.

“Alrighty, Mutty Buddy, follow me.” You motion for him to follow and he does, noticing how his eyelights don’t leave you until you get to the carts.

“First things first, you can see we have a total of eight carts set up here, yeah? Each one goes to a specific aisle. This one is six and seven, this is eight and nine, 10 and 11, 12 and 13, 14- you get the picture.” You turn to pick up a box from the line, pointing at the label he leans over you slightly to see better, “And if you look right here on the label you’ll see the aisle on it. This one says A-13, which goes on the cart for 12 and 13. The other boxes say similar things with their aisle number too.” He simply nods in understanding before you continue putting it on the respective cart and turning to grab another, satisfied that he seems to be paying attention.

“If you look up here at this though, and it says C 13, it’ll go on a pallet for chemical. There’s also a C 04, which goes to the paper pallet next to it. Just be mindful of the label and how you stack things so they don’t fall over when being brought to the floor and you’ll be good. If you have any questions or it doesn’t have an aisle number on it, feel free to ask me. Let’s get started.”

And so you start grabbing boxes from the line, three at a time and place them on their respective overstock carts. The skeleton monster follows suit but with one box at a time, looking around at the carts with each box attempting to remember which carts are which. Which is fine, some of them can get pretty heavy, and sometimes the shape or size of the box makes things awkward to hold, and there’s quite a few carts to keep track of. He seems to be doing fairly well as more boxes get pushed down by the truck unloaders, though. Not many questions arise as time flies, except for a few with empty labels, you keep notice of when he’s struggling too much on a box and tell him where they go with a quick correction every so often.

“Think you’re ready to learn where to take them? We’ve got a couple that need to be replaced.” He nods again, not very talkative one is he?

Rearranging a cart or two to pull one of them out you motion him to do the same with the other full cart. He does so and you lead him down the path set for carts. Along the walls, there’s pallets and shelves full of overstock boxes and the floor beneath you is a worn smooth grey, you have to pause at an intersection to let someone with a pallet jack through before turning left and going through the big swinging doors that lead to the front area. Mutt is behind you still, yanking along his cart and watching you. Soon you come to a rest outside of the aisle your cart belongs to, parking it in the center of the mid-section as far left as you can manage.

“Okay, this is where my cart goes, yours is a couple more down, so go ahead and find a spot for it down there.” Pointing in the direction, he gives you a nod in return and leaves. It’s your turn to watch him as he find the perfect spot and parks it next to a bin before strolling back towards you.

“Let’s get back to the line, we’re almost done with the truck I believe. Then we’ll be sent on our 15.”

Sure enough, the truck soon empties and the line follows suit shortly after as the bosses call for break. You lead Mutt to the break room, shedding your work vests and he grabs some stuff from his assigned locker as you do the same. Looks like you both thought to take a smoke break as you don your own jacket, an olive green parka with a furred hood. Hah, twinning!

“Follow me, I’ll show you one of the smoke spots.” He does, those lavender eyelights still never leaving you as you do. Still hasn’t said much either, he seems to be reserved, or maybe shy? You’re sure he’ll open up eventually. 

The walk is a short 5 minutes, including the time it took to drop the stuff off in the break room, going out the automatic sliding doors in the front and veering left to where the carts get pushed back inside. You give the cart guy a greeting, a few laughs, and stick your tongue out as he tells you to stop stealing his carts before he does one of his little tricks that you’re still surprised he doesn’t get in trouble for before settling down on the concrete with your back against the painted brick wall. Mutt follows suit, plopping down with a puff of air from his jacket.

“So, Mutty Buddy, how you liking it so far? Easy enough?” You light your cigarette, offering it up to the skeleton before he pulls out his own, so you pocket yours once again.

“thought it’d be more taxin’, to be honest.” He responds, taking a drag. Haha! Maybe he is just shy. His voice is soothing, nice yet gravelly. You assume he’d be a tenor if he were to sing, honestly. Surely the smokes aren’t helping.

“Yeah, if I can do it, anyone can! Believe it or not, if I do much as move wrong, or even flex wrong, sometimes, I could dislocate my shoulder or hip! Considering how much lifting this job requires, it’s much easier.”

“‘ssat so?”

“Watch-“ you lift up your sleeve to shoulder, simultaneously flex and relax your arm, popping your humerus out slightly before letting it back into place, “isn’t that some freaky shit?”

“christ, chihuahua, you weren’t kidding.” He attempt not to chuckle, and you give yourself a silent congratulations before realizing the nickname.

“Chihuahua?” He simply shrugs in response, continuing to puff on his ciggy. Somehow, light purple smoke trails out.

You choose to ignore it. Probably for the best.

“how long have you been workin’ here?” He asks after a few moments, you can see him peaking at you from the corner of his sockets. You wonder what he’s thinking about as he does, he looks at you an awful lot.

“A month!” A low whistle comes from him.

“aren’t ya a little new to train then?”

“Nahhh, Like Richie said, I’m a very fast learner. What about you man, wanna tell some stuff about you?”

“i’m a skeleton monster.”

“Nooooooo, I would’ve never guessed.” You deadpan. He offers a soft humored smile in return before sniffing his butt out and a couple more moments pass, noticing again the gold fangs and the tiny radiating cracks above them. They aren’t the only scars he appears to have either, you note as you finish yours and snuff it out too before standing. 

“It’s your story to tell, just remember that you can. Your story and who you tell it to is the one thing nobody can take.” He looks up at you with a curious expression, and you motion him to follow you inside, he stands to do so.

The cart guy from earlier watches as you grab a cart to-go and throws up his hands in mock disbelief, to which your roll your eyes and chuckle. You hear Mutt breathe out his nasal bone and you’re sure he’s probably got a small smirk on his fangs, if you had bothered to turn and look, that is.

Soon, you’ve parked the cart you snagged by the aisle, both rushed back to the break room, donned your work vests and headed back to the line to pick up any remaining overstock carts to bring out to the floor, Mutt is once again silent as ever following your every move.

You bring one of the overstocks into the aisle and tell him to bring the cart you snagged earlier, once the one you’ve got is parked, you walk him through grabbing the empty boxes on the shelves, breaking them down and setting them in the cart. Then take him back to receiving to show him how to crush them- even though there’s not enough boxes in the cart, you figured showing him now would save trouble later- and head back to show him how to scan boxes for their location.

The handheld you grabbed when you originally clocked in you gave to him to use, since you already know where everything goes. He gladly takes it and begins scanning and placing items on the shelves, and he still doesn’t ask any questions. It’s got you wondering if you’re doing a good job explaining or not, surely he would ask if you forgot to mention something. But like earlier, maybe he’s just shy.

Every so often, you notice him staring at you still. It’s starting to bother you, but you rationalize that maybe he recognizes you from somewhere. Part of you wants to stare back until he stops, but he’s new. It’s fine. You’re not getting any weird vibes from him like you would most others with ill intent. Maybe he’s thinking about what you had said earlier, about him telling his story when he wants to? Christ, we’re you out of line by saying that to the new guy? Yet that doesn’t seem to account for before you had said anything.

Hmm.

Lunch hour comes around swiftly and you take him back to show him how to clock out for it and set off to buy some food and something to drink before finding your work friends, who were under the canopied smoke spot on the opposite end from earlier and you all start shooting your shit. The topics move from weed- which you walked in on- to horses somehow, and then broken extremities and more. Currently you’re taking turns talking about ex’s. Sooner than not, thirty minutes flies by as everyone cracks up at another story and at the same time, Mutt rounds the corner, cigarette already lit and looking… admittedly a little lost.

That’s kinda… cute?   
  


You shake the thought away, it’s normal to be lost at a new job. That doesn’t necessarily make it cute.

“Aye! Everyone, I’m sure you’ve seen the guy I’ve been training around. This is Papyrus, he doesn’t talk much so far, but he’s doing a really good job!” You announce, motioning over to him with jazz hands. Some people are still wheezing at the previous story, but the ones who’ve collected themselves greet him, “Mutt, this is Case, Mandy, and José. They’re my workin’ pals.”

“Awe, and here I thought we were normal pals. I got that Snapchat and everything~.” Case says teasingly, accentuated by an obnoxiously obvious wink. His long curly red hair swaying as he does. It earns a few snickers from the others, Mandy’s fluffy black bob, well, bobbing and olive skin wrinkling at the edges of her eyes, and José’s breath fogs the air around his soft features and usually tired eyes.

“Please, you’re the only one who’s asked.” You roll your eyes before moving to sit back down. “Anyway where was I-“ the phone in your pocket cuts you off with your roommates tone. She never calls unless somethings wrong, so you answer immediately.

“Suzie? What’s wrong?” And all at once your roommate goes on a inconsolable tangent, it’s obvious she’s been crying and still is just by her tone of voice and shaky breaths. You’ve already stood and looked around with a frantic expression before taking your leave.

“Suzie, listen, I’ll be home soon. Just gotta tell the boss I’m leaving for an emergency, alright?” Entering and rushing to the back of the store, you push and maneuver around anyone in your way, “Stay put, don’t move. I’ve gotta hang up now, but I promise I’m maybe 10 minutes away. Sit tight.”

Suzie mutters an ‘okay’ before you tell her you’d be there soon and hang up right as you find a manager. Fortunately it’s Richie, so it’ll hopefully be easier to get out.

“Y/n, what’s wrong?”

“There’s an rather urgent emergency at home, I’m sorry but I’m gonna have to leave for the rest of the day.” He flashed concern at you for a moment before replying.

“I’ll get you clocked out and put Papyrus with someone else for the rest of the evening. Go on home.”

“Thanks Richie.” And with that you’re rushing through the store again and nearly slamming through the sliding doors up front.

Hopefully you didn’t take too long to get there.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates are sporadic, so good luck lmao
> 
> Constructive criticism welcome!


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